By Ray Pultinas (with Alejandra
Garcia, Bintou Jalebi, Hannah Kimerling and Amonique Perry)
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| Awesome Garden Extension Project started with the help of Grow to Learn's Che'Von Cooper and completed by the fabulous students in our 9th period Sustainability class! From left to right, Alejandra Garcia, Maria Rodriguez, Amanda Tillie, Adamma Ogbennaya and Amonique Perry (All photos by Ray Pultinas). |
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Dewitt
Clinton’s Sustainability classes, led by Sustainability Coordinator and English
teacher Ray Pultinas, have been undertaking the task of improving the school
grounds, local environment and the flourishing Clinton Garden. Now in its second year, the main focus of this
class is for students to get a better understanding of the Earth and how to
help the environment. The students in Sustainability are perhaps the most
active on campus and already this year have participated in National Kale Day,
built and tested solar ovens, planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs, celebrated
the fall harvest with a Native Taino Ceremony, held a Fall Harvest Sale,
toured the watersheds of Van Courtlandt Park, helped remove invasive plants from the banks of the Bronx River, toured the Farmer's Market at Poe Park, and built three hoop houses to extend the growing season in The Clinton Garden.
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| What would National Kale Day be without a Kale Dinosaur who loves Dinosaur Kale? (here played by Zoraida Dejesus.) |
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| Kale Goddess Dania De Leon and National Kale Day Co-Founder, Dr. Drew Ramsey.
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| And on the mike, the indomitable Joshua Vega preaching the gospel of Kale! |
Who doesn’t
love kale? If there were any doubts of our
school’s response to this question, they were dispelled as DeWitt Clinton found
itself at the forefront of the celebration of National Kale Day on October
7. The founder of National Kale Day, Dr.
Drew Ramsey, who arrived on the scene in the student cafeteria, witnessed a kale celebration
in all its glory. Garden to Café
Coordinator George Edwards, and Wellness in the School’s Ellen Emerson along
with Sustainability students were sharing kale chips and other delicacies
prepared for the event against a backdrop of colorful student made posters. Students took the open mike to share poems
and stories they had written in praise of kale and there was a Kale Dinosaur
(named after Dinosaur Kale) parading around the cafeteria. Bintou Jalebi exclaimed, “It was so epic and
funny, we got to present funny posters, poems and raps about kale!”
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| The best designs had the best results! |
On October
8, Sustainability students began building solar ovens in class workshops led by
Mike Zamm, Director of the Environmental Education Program at Grow NYC. Mr. Zamm then took students out to test their
ovens on a chilly late October morning.
Despite the temperature, students were still able to melt at least the
chocolate on their smores and sample the results.
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| Sustainability students spent at least 10 hours planting 1,100 daffodil bulbs that will grace our beautiful campus this coming spring! |
When it
comes to adding beauty to our school grounds, some of the things that
Sustainability students do require a bit of patience. For instance, after receiving a donation of
over 1000 daffodil bulbs from New Yorkers for Parks and the Daffodil Project
students set to work on planting bulbs
that will only emerge next Spring.
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Roman Guaraguaorix (Redhawk) Perez officiating at a ceremony that honored all who have helped The Clinton Garden.
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| Students, parents, teachers and community members gathered on the site of the future Clinton Orchard to give thanks for past and future abundance. |
Perhaps the
most unique and powerful activity in Sustainability this fall happened on the
first day of our Harvest Week Celebration on October 27, a Native American
Harvest Ceremony led by Roman Guaraguaorix
(Redhawk) Perez, Kacike (chief) for Maisiti Yukayeke Taino; a tribe of the
Taino Nation. Chief Redhawk led an
enthusiastic group of about 40 students, parents, faculty and community members
in a variety of Taino and Native American rituals to both thank the earth for
its abundant harvest as well as bless the spot on the West lawn of our campus
that will be the site of our fruit orchard.
Students in particular enjoyed participating in a “snake dance” that
ended up in the formation of a community circle. There was chanting, drumming, a purification
ritual and storytelling. The ceremony
ended in a celebration of the birthday of Milton Roman, who assists in the
Clinton Library. At least five students
present were able to claim Native ancestry and for them the ceremony was
especially significant as it seems a rare event to take place in public high
schools. Sustainability student Mirza
Baig put it this way, “the funnest part was when I put the tobacco in the fire, it felt
cool!”
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| John Butler of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park led a tour of the Tibbett's Brook Watershed and explained plans to daylight the brook that presently empties into the New York City sewer system wasting millions of dollars each year. |
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| Sustainability class in the field, from left, John Butler (Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, Izabella Muratovic, TJ Silver, Zoraida DeJesus, Santia Gonzalez-Cancel, Jack Gambino, Jessica Davila, Jasmely Torres, Mike Zamm, Ariana Thompson, Ansil Stephen, Milton Roman, Ray Pultinas. |
Our Annual Harvest Sale
this year took place during the last week of October and we raised nearly $300 for The Clinton Garden and
the Environmental Affairs Club by selling local and organic fruits and
vegetables including peppers, basil and kale from our own Clinton Garden. On Thursday, October 29, sustainability
students were led on a hike to see Tibbets Brook as it flows into and out of
Van Cortlandt Lake. Trails Project
Manager John Butler and Director of Programs Sara Kempton both of Friends of
Van Cortlandt Park led the trip and explained a proposed project to daylight a
large section of Tibbets Brook that has been channeled underground for many
years that will result in a new Bronx greenbelt in New York City.
Mike Zamm,
who has been educating DeWitt Clinton students on the environment for over 30
years calls our school’s Sustainability program one of the most comprehensive
in all of New York City. On any given
day this fall you might see students starting seedlings for a season extension
experiment, or sewing winter cover crops on some of the twenty raised beds in
The Clinton Garden or composting food scraps mixed with fallen oak leaves. Mr. Zamm is being honored as Friend of the Month by the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park but in reality Mr. Zamm has become a Friend for Life for his tireless contributions to environmental programming at DeWitt Clinton High School.
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| Mike Zamm, second from left, along with Bronx River Alliance and Sustainability students from DeWitt Clinton near the scene of intense invasive removal. |
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| The small team of Sustainability students from left Alejandra Garcia, Bintou Jabbi and Juan Saavedra Vidals cleared an immense zone of Japanese Knotweed from the banks of the Bronx River! |
On November 9, Mr. Zamm led a small contingent of Sustainability students to assist the Bronx River Alliance by
removing Japanese Knotweed, an invasive species that threatens the biodiversity of our local
watershed. Our final field trip of the year brought us to Poe Park where we met the farmers and sampled foods prepared at GrowNYC's Farmer’s Market.
As
Sustainability student Theodore Brailsford remarks, “so far I believe we have
made an even bigger scene this year than we had last year” and “I am very proud
when I hear random people talk about Sustainability, which rarely happened last
year.” As Sustainability student
Amonique Perry tells it, “this class helps me to improve my leadership skills,
collaborate with team members and be responsible.” As anybody concerned about the future of our
Earth will tell you, we need leadership on issues of the environment precisely
because we are responsible for the planet that we all need to live on.
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| Fall sunset on The Clinton Garden: the greenhouse is replaced by three new beds increasing our number of raised beds to 17. |
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| The three new beds will be growing winter greens into the winter! |
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